Cantonese GIVE and Double-Object Construction
Cantonese GIVE and Double-Object Construction

Author: Andy Chi-on Chin

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2022-06-15

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 9027257809

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GIVE is a versatile morpheme in many languages. While there have been extensive studies on the interplay between the syntax and semantics of GIVE in many languages, not much has been done in a similar manner on Cantonese, a member of the Yue dialect group of the Chinese language family. This monograph reports on the study of GIVE and its associated functions and syntactic constructions in Cantonese from diachronic, synchronic, and typological perspectives. Drawing on cross-linguistic data, and 19th century Cantonese dialect materials, this study first traces the chronological development of the various functions played by GIVE in Cantonese. It then examines the double-object construction. Besides the typological features of this construction in Cantonese, this study investigates the use of the northern pattern in Cantonese as a result of the increasing influence of Putonghua and Modern Standard Chinese by means of a sociolinguistic survey with 40 native speakers of Cantonese.

Chinese Grammar at Work
Chinese Grammar at Work

Author: Shuanfan Huang

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2013-12-15

Total Pages: 472

ISBN-13: 9027271364

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Chinese Grammar at Work adopts a cognitive-functional approach and uses a corpus-based methodology to examine how Chinese syntax emerges from natural discourse context and what the evolving grammar at work looks like. In this volume the author weaves together an array of fresh perspectives on clause structure, constructions, interactional linguistics, cognitive science and complex dynamic systems to construct a grammar of spoken Chinese. The volume contains discussions of a large number of topics: contiguity relation, the roles of repair strategies in the shaping of constituent structure, non-canonical word order constructions, pragmatics of referring expressions, classifier constructions, noun-modifying constructions, verb complementation, ethnotheory of the person and constructions specific to the language of emotion, sequential sensitivity of linguistic materials, meaning potential in interaction, the nature of variability and stability in Chinese syntax from the perspective of complexity theory. The result is a volume that highlights the connections between language structure, situated and embodied nature of cognition and language use, and affords a true entrée to the exciting realm of Chinese grammar.

Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage
Competing Motivations in Grammar and Usage

Author: Brian MacWhinney

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-10-30

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 0191019771

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This volume examines the conflicting factors that shape the content and form of grammatical rules in language usage. Speakers and addressees need to contend with these rules when expressing themselves and when trying to comprehend messages. For example, there are on-going competitions between the speaker's interests and the addressee's needs, or between constraints imposed by grammar and those imposed by online processing. These competitions influence a wide variety of systems, including case marking, agreement and word order, politeness forms, lexical choices, and the position of relative clauses. Chapters in the book analyse grammar and usage in adult language as well as first and second language acquisition, and the motivations that drive historical change. Several of the chapters seek explanations for the competitions involved, based on earlier accounts including the Competition Model, Natural Morphology, the functional-typological tradition, and Optimality Theory. The book will be of interest to linguists from a wide variety of backgrounds, particularly those interested in psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, philosophy of language, and language acquisition, from advanced undergraduate level upwards.

Grammars in Contact
Grammars in Contact

Author: Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2007-01-04

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0191514128

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Languages can be similar in many ways - they can resemble each other in categories, constructions and meanings, and in the actual forms used to express these. A shared feature may be based on common genetic origin, or result from geographic proximity and borrowing. Some aspects of grammar are spread more readily than others. The question is - which are they? When languages are in contact with each other, what changes do we expect to occur in their grammatical structures? Only an inductively based cross-linguistic examination can provide an answer. This is what this volume is about. The book starts with a typological introduction outlining principles of contact-induced change and factors which facilitate diffusion of linguistic traits. It is followed by twelve studies of contact-induced changes in languages from Amazonia, East and West Africa, Australia, East Timor, and the Sinitic domain. Set alongside these are studies of Pennsylvania German spoken by Mennonites in Canada in contact with English, Basque in contact with Romance languages in Spain and France, and language contact in the Balkans. All the studies are based on intensive fieldwork, and each cast in terms of the typological parameters set out in the introduction. The book includes a glossary to facilitate its use by graduates and advanced undergraduates in linguistics and in disciplines such as anthropology.

Cantonese as a Second Language
Cantonese as a Second Language

Author: John C. Wakefield

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-04-09

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1351184237

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Cantonese is a language from southern China that is spoken by roughly 70 million people worldwide. It is the language of Hong Kong cinema and has traditionally been the most prominent language spoken in Chinatowns around the world. People choose to learn Cantonese for a variety of social and economic reasons: because it is a heritage language that one’s relatives speak; because it is the language of one’s partner and monolingual in-laws; because it is necessary for living and working in Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, or other Cantonese-speaking communities; because it is the bridge to fully appreciating and understanding Cantonese culture; or simply because it is an irresistible challenge. Whatever the motivation, more and more people are choosing to learn Cantonese as an additional language. This book discusses many issues related to both acquiring and teaching Cantonese. If you are a learner of Cantonese, this long overdue volume is essential to understanding both the grammatical and the social issues involved with learning this notoriously difficult language. If you are a teacher, this book will be invaluable to gaining insight into your students’ motivations and needs. And finally, if you are an applied linguist, the unique aspects related to the acquisition of Cantonese offer a fascinating contribution to the literature.

The Dative
The Dative

Author: William van Belle

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1998-01-01

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 9027228132

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This book is the second part of a two-volume reader on the 'Dative'. In the first part, which appeared in 1996, eleven papers were presented providing a syntactic and semantic description of the category 'Dative' in eleven languages. The aim of this second part is to discuss several aspects of the Dative in greater detail. It contains eight papers dealing with theoretical considerations on 'dativity' as well as with contrastive, typological and diachronic issues. A major concern is the relation between form (case, grammatical relation) and meaning (semantic roles or other kinds of meaning). Most contributions in this volume represent cognitive and functional views or a critical discussion of them.As in the first volume, the linguistic material mainly stems from Germanic and Romance languages. Contemporary English is the basis for Davidse's theoretical claims; Pasicki studies the dative in Old English. Dutch appears especially in Geeraerts' semantic analysis, but also in the papers by Draye, Lamiroy & Delbecque and Van Langendonck. Draye, Lamiroy & Delbecque and Melis also take German into consideration. Latin is dealt with by Melis and Van Langendonck. Modern Romance languages, especially French, provide further data for Melis and Lamiroy & Delbecque. Finally, Newman adduces a variety of languages for his typological analyses.

Causation, Permission, and Transfer
Causation, Permission, and Transfer

Author: Brian Nolan

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2015-01-14

Total Pages: 507

ISBN-13: 9027268975

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This book offers a comprehensive investigative study of the argument realisation of the concepts of causative purpose, permit, let/allow and transfer in a broad cross-linguistic typologically diverse mix of languages with GIVE, GET, TAKE, PUT, and LET verbs. This volume stands as the first systematic exploration of these verbs and concepts as they occur in complex events and clauses. This book brings together scholars and researchers from a variety of functionally inspired theoretical backgrounds that have worked on these verbs within one language or from a cross-linguistic perspective. The objective is to understand the linguistic behaviour of the verbs and their inter-relationships within a contemporary cognitive-functional linguistic perspective. The languages represented include Irish, German, Slavic (West Slavic: Polish, Czech, Slovak and Sorbian and Western South Slavic: Slovenian and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian), Germanic, Romance, Gan Chinese Yichun dialect, Māori, Bohairic Coptic, Shaowu Chinese, Hebrew, English, Lithuanian, Estonian, the Australian dialects Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara, Italian, and Persian. Topics discussed include argument structure and the encoding of arguments under causation, permission and transferverbs, their lexical semantics and event structure.

The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language
The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language

Author: Sin-Wai Chan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-14

Total Pages: 1085

ISBN-13: 131738248X

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The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language is an invaluable resource for language learners and linguists of Chinese worldwide, those interested readers of Chinese literature and cultures, and scholars in Chinese studies. Featuring the research on the changing landscape of the Chinese language by a number of eminent academics in the field, this volume will meet the academic, linguistic and pedagogical needs of anyone interested in the Chinese language: from Sinologists to Chinese linguists, as well as teachers and learners of Chinese as a second language. The encyclopedia explores a range of topics: from research on oracle bone and bronze inscriptions, to Chinese language acquisition, to the language of the mass media. This reference offers a guide to shifts over time in thinking about the Chinese language as well as providing an overview of contemporary themes, debates and research interests. The editors and contributors are assisted by an editorial board comprised of the best and most experienced sinologists world-wide. The reference includes an introduction, written by the editor, which places the assembled texts in their historical and intellectual context. The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital research resource.

Argument Structure and Grammatical Relations
Argument Structure and Grammatical Relations

Author: Pirkko Suihkonen

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 423

ISBN-13: 9027205930

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This book is a collection of articles dealing with various aspects of grammatical relations and argument structure in the languages of Europe and North and Central Asia (LENCA). Topics covered with respect to individual languages are: split-intransitivity (Basque), causativization (Agul), transitives and causatives (Korean and Japanese), aspectual domain and quantification (Finnish and Udmurt), head-marking principles (Athabaskan languages), and pragmatics (Eastern Khanty and Xibe). Typology of argument-structure properties of 'give' (LENCA), typology of agreement systems, asymmetry in argument structure, typology of the Amdo Sprachbund, spatial realtors (Northeastern Turkic), core argument patterns (languages of Northern California), and typology of grammatical relations (LENCA) are the topics of articles based on cross-linguistic data. The broad empirical sweep and the fine-tuned theoretical analysis highlight the central role of argument structure and grammatical relations with respect to a plethora of linguistic phenomena.

The Bilingual Child
The Bilingual Child

Author: Virginia Yip

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-08-27

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1139473824

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How does a child become bilingual? The answer to this intriguing question remains largely a mystery, not least because it has been far less extensively researched than the process of mastering a first language. Drawing on new studies of children exposed to two languages from birth (English and Cantonese), this book demonstrates how childhood bilingualism develops naturally in response to the two languages in the children's environment. While each bilingual child's profile is unique, the children studied are shown to develop quite differently from monolingual children. The authors demonstrate significant interactions between the children's developing grammars, as well as the important role played by language dominance in their bilingual development. Based on original research and using findings from the largest available multimedia bilingual corpus, the book will be welcomed by students and scholars working in child language acquisition, bilingualism and language contact.